Honda UK in Customer Drive to Improve Sales. (Direct)

Honda UK in Customer Drive to Improve Sales. (Direct)

Article excerpt

Honda UK is tipped to hand its below-the-line business to Hicklin Slade & Partners. The brief is to reverse the car marque's declining UK sales through closer contact with its customers.

The decision is due ahead of a critical communications campaign in April supporting the launch of the Jazz subcompact model. It follows the collapse of Honda's previous below-the-line agency, Team LGM.

The car company is understood to be in final talks with Hicklin Slade. The agency is expected to be handed a brief that will see it work closely with the car-maker's other roster agencies to improve Honda's threadbare database and increase its contacts with consumers.

Honda's Swindon-based European operations have been struggling recently, despite record profits and a run of new models. Sales were down 16% in Europe overall for 2001, while new UK car registrations for the marque were down by 7% to 63,459, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

Despite strong sales for its Civic saloons and CRV off-road model, Swindon has been hit by the strength of the pound against the euro, which recently caused the company to jettison plans to build the Jazz in the UK. …